I went outside to clean up our 4th of July garage party this morning, just in case I have to park the cars inside. We have a decent sized trash can for the garage and I made the mistake of using a yard debris bag instead of a regular trash bag in it then I filled it full of garage sale garbage. Heavy stuff. A yard debris bag is thinner than a garbage bag so I had to transfer all the garbage to the garbage bag. Like a normal person I secured the new bag onto the corners of the can and proceeded to tip the can over so all the trach falls into the new bag and it worked, so very well! I was shocked. Usually one corner pops off and garbage goes everywhere. So I am guiding the larger items into the new bag when quite suddenly I found myself on the concrete driveway. I didn't realize I was falling until my knees hit the driveway. My "bad" knee is a little worse for the wear and my palms hurt a little but I will live. Is that how elderly people fall? You just don't notice until the sudden pain. The beauty of being short is that I don't have far to fall.
Something cool I have noticed is that the closer I am to the Lord, the better my personal walk wit Him, the less likely I am to irrationally react to a situation. By nature I am not a panicky person, anyone that remembers the events with the twins at the lake when they were babies knows I don't panic. I stay so calm that my husband mistakes my calmness for apathy. I hear him say, "You should care about this!" all the time. What is my panic going to accomplish? Rule one of parenting and caregiving is, " If you make a big deal, they will make a big deal" If they fall and you freak out, they will learn that crying or falling gets bonus attention. Cute when kids are toddlers, not so much when they are preteens. Thing is, I do care, I care a lot, its just that in my soul I know that no matter what happens in this neighborhood, in this town, in this city, State, Country, continent, world GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE and as long as He is, there is nothing that can touch me. Sure, I can fall but I will get back up. I can die in some horrible car accident but I will get back up in eternity.
There is no "ifs" with God, there is no, "I don't knows" with God, There is no, " I am not good enough" with God, He doesn't care about our goodness. Our goodness gets us to heaven about as well as blinker fluid makes the turn signals in a car work. Our righteousness is as filthy rags and you know what happens to filthy rags? They catch fire, burn up. Good works, bad works, all of it burns. The only things that last are what we do for God here on earth, the souls that we share the gospel with, thats it. Souls are eternal, they are the ONLY things that are eternal. Your spirit will die, your flesh will die, everything dies but the soul lasts. Wanna know why an elderly person with severe dementia can play the piano like Mozart from memory? Because music is not in the flesh, music is eternal, its in the soul. God created music so man can praise Him for eternity.
The original thought, I rabbit trailed, was about irrational thinking. The closer my walk with the Lord the less likely I am to use language unbecoming of a Christian. The less likely I am to go to places unbecoming of a Christian. The less likely I am going to seek out company unbecoming of a Christian and the more likely I am to make posts that give God honor and glory rather than rant and rave about my problems. I am an over transparent person, its a trauma coping strategy. Its not people pleasing, it looks like people pleasing but its a trauma response.
At first, I wanted people to understand my view, my trauma, I cried for help on social media, begged people for support they did not want to or could not provide. My world became so small.
It took a stroke to make me see that I was being irrational. I was reading my Bible, I was praying, I was at least live streaming church, working a full time job, giving literally everything I had every shift on that job, being everything to everyone, I cared for my house, fed my family, I was a good wife, a good mother, a good coworker, a good employee, on the outside, I looked good, my righteousness was getting me places, so I thought. Why was God allowing all this never ending trauma in my life, it did not seem fair or just. I felt like I was missing the train every day, standing on the platform just watching it go by and never getting on.
Inside I was angry. Trauma was eating me alive. A tiny feather set me off. It took one person, one death, to blow my top. It was a significant death, someone I thought had already been dead 30 years and I had buried deep in the recesses of my mind. One phone call, one question, one irrational over reaction. My top blew like Mt. St. Helens. Manic high, I went to work so high, flying like a free spirited eagle in the air, I was so manically happy over this mans death. No one questioned it, no one asked me anything. When someone is that visibly happy, that naturally high, there is usually something going on underneath. Manic high is a rush of the same chemicals you get from being drug induced high. All those happy "N" chemicals.
What always follows a manic high like that is an even deeper, manic low. Like the Mariana Trench of lows. The pressure is 16,000 pounds per square inch. You feel it in your ears, eyes, head, everything hurts. It feels like your head is about to implode physically and mentally. This is where people commit suicide, the pressure is intense. Manic high usually last a few hours, I can get through 3/4 of a work shift in a manic high but a manic low hits hard and fast and makes you sick right away. The bottom drops out.
I stroked out sitting at my dining room table. I wasn't doing anything, just sitting there playing with a crumb with my back to Zach who was sitting right where I am now, nearly a straight view to the table. I was in a manic low. My head was pounding, my heart was throbbing, the pain was searing like someone had ran a blade through my ear and out the top of my skull. I fell over, passed out onto the chair next to the one I was sitting in and no one in my house noticed. It became a day of no one caring, one person cared but she was it, she's the one that said that it looked like I was having a stroke. No one called 911, no one rushed me to anywhere.
I was angry, at first, then I was sad, no one cared. I still get overwhelmed sometimes by the sadness, I try not to dwell on it. Apparently God cared because I am still here and I have most of my mental and physical straignth back with some lasting reminders. I am a lot slower now physically and mentally, my eyes are droopy, I have Lymphedema in my legs and above my eyes, my eyes aged 30 years according to Dr. Woodmansee whom I see biyearly.
At first I was angry at everyone who saw me that day, everyone who wasn't paying attention, I could have acted very irrationally and I would have been justified in the anger. However, there is no point. What's done is done, what happened to me I pray is a lesson to everyone who was involved. Young people can have strokes.
It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman, we all have emotions. We all have the ability to over react, to be irrational, make snap judgements but as a Christian, as someone who professes to be born again, blood bought, Bible believing, we are not justified in our overreactions.
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